The University of Michigan Board of Regents today named Syracuse Chancellor Kent Syverud, a two-time U-M alumnus, to succeed Domenico Grasso as president of the Ann Arbor college.
Grasso, a professor of public policy and engineering, and formerly the chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn campus, has been serving as U-M’s interim president since May 2025, when Santa Ono announced he was leaving to seek the presidency of the University of Florida.
Syverud, who has been at the Syracuse helm since 2014, earned a master’s degree in economics and a law degree from U-M in the 1980s and later served on the U-M law school faculty. He earned an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Before leading Syracuse, Syverud was the dean and a university professor at Washington University in St. Louis from 2006 to 2013. Prior to that, he served as dean of the Vanderbilt Law School for eight years.
From 1987 to 1997, he was on the faculty at the U-M law school. He received tenure in 1992 and became an associate dean for academic affairs in 1995.
He also was a witness for U-M in the Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld U-M Law School’s limited use of race in admissions, as the majority held that admissions policies that favored underrepresented minorities did not violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause as long as other factors were taken into account on an individual’s application.
Before turning to academia, Syverud was a law clerk for Judge Louis Oberdorfer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. He practiced litigation and insurance law at the law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C., from 1985 to 1987.
“He’ll be terrific,” Michael Behm, a U-M regent, told MLive. “He’s just who we’re looking for to lead the university.”
